The Music of Words
by Howlingwolf94
Summary: Series of one-shots all based on AllenxLenalee in some way, shape, or form based on songs. Open to requests. 1: After finishing a mission, Allen makes his way home, reflecting on the past and the present, trying to uncover a possible future that doesn't end in loneliness and death.


Author's Note: This is going to be a series of one-shots with each centered on a song. The song will either play a literal or stylistic role in each one-shot. This means that I'll either take what the lyrics are actually saying (not the deeper meaning behind them) or go off wherever the instrumental beat of the song takes me. Sometimes I might do both, but that won't happen often.

Story lengths will vary with pieces being no shorter than 1,500 words. Every tenth one-shot will be an extra-long one. This is open to requests, so feel free to ask for specific songs, scenarios, settings, genres, and anything else you can think of. I will try to do them all, I promise. You may also request more than once.

If you haven't heard a song before, I recommend that you go and listen to it.

To the people who have been reading Think of Me and are wondering of my next update, all I can say is please be patient. It hasn't been forgotten nor have I seized writing it. The process just takes me a lot of time to do, time that I don't always have. For now, please enjoy this series.

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-man or its characters and I don't own any of the songs that appear in this series.

-Length: 2,025 words

-Rating: K+

-Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship

-Summary: After finishing a mission, Allen makes his way home, reflecting on the past and the present, trying to uncover a possible future that doesn't end in loneliness and death.

* * *

On My Way Home—Enya

Down a weather beaten path covered with snow, a lone figure treaded with crunching footsteps. A golden golem the size of his fist flew around his head, enjoying its little game of passing through the opaque mist that its master exhaled with each breath.

The figure was that of a young male, roughly about sixteen. He wore a black, hooded coat appropriate for the chilly weather that bore a silver insignia over his heart. It signified him as an Exorcist of the Black Order, a secret society known for dealing with supernatural creatures called akuma. The boy himself had just recently dealt with such creatures, and now was on his way back home.

Home. It's such a nice word to hear, and even more so to say. To have a place to call home is synonymous to having a place where you belong. Although, as of late, home really didn't feel like home.

"Mind slowing down, Walker?" snapped a voice a few feet behind the lad, bringing him brief pause.

The boy chuckled softly, face showing fond amusement. "Come on, Link. We'd get there a lot sooner if you'd just learn to pick up the pace."

A young man with blonde hair drawn back in a braid scowled, remarking with an indignant huff, "Not everyone was brought up to keep walking no matter the climate. Some of us still have a preference to riding carriages when it comes to this blasted weather as opposed to walking, like you!"

"Learn to live a little," remarked Walker, "This winter air is truly bracing."

The second traveler, his full name Howard Link, merely rolled his eyes and left it at that. This made the younger boy's smile grow, ever fond of making Link's job difficult. After all, it was only natural that he did so, seeing as how his companion had a penchant for following him around like the watch dog he was.

Walker—or Allen as he rather be called—kept up his unrelenting pace, gaze kept forward to the general direction in which headquarters would eventually appear. It was only a few more miles left before they reach their destination. And sure, he couldn't exactly say he could feel his feet at this point, but he was fine with that. He liked walking, as his surname so blatantly suggested.

His father Mana liked walking too. He always insisted that they walk to everywhere they went. Though it had been difficult at first, and Mana had to carry him on his back a couple of times, it had helped shape his endurance to what it was today. He had to be grateful for that at least, otherwise training with his Master would've surely been hell. Or, rather, even more hell.

With his thoughts now centered on Mana, the ever present ache in his heart festered. He tried not to think of his deceased foster father often, but when he did, guilt and despair from before would come anew. He often asserted to himself that he had fixed his own mistake of making the man an akuma, but even that didn't make it easier.

The golden golem known as Timcanpy, sensing its master's gloomy attitude, settled down comfortingly on his shoulder, nestling in close to his neck. Allen appreciated the creature's company, stroking where he presumed its face was.

"Thanks Tim," he murmured to the golem softly.

"What was that?" Link questioned, struggling to pick up the pace.

Allen snorted, hiding the laughter that wanted to come. "Nothing, Link. I was just talking to Tim."

No reply was given to that, leaving Allen to shake his head ruefully. Sometimes Link was just too easy to poke fun at. Had he not had the Fourteenth Noah hanging over his head, he would've gone out of his way to mess with the stick in the mud more often. But as it were, his attempts will probably only result in some kind of court-martial or worse, face an inquisition. Heaven knows that if he does something that someone doesn't like, his life is on the line.

Since when did everything get so complicated? Since when did hanging out and messing with friends become so dangerous? Perhaps it was the day he officially joined the Order, or maybe it was meeting General Cross. Or…perhaps it went even further than that, right down to the moment he met Mana. His problems seemed to have a tie with that man, what with him being the blood brother to the previous Fourteenth Noah and all.

Things had never been easy for him, but did his life really end up having to be crap? The fates like toying with him, it was clear. Exorcist and Noah, neither one nor the other. Why couldn't he just be normal or normal enough for an Exorcist? Why did he have to be dealt this crummy hand in the card game with destiny?

So many questions, _too_ many questions, and not enough answers.

Solemn and weary, Allen pulled his cloak around him tighter, picking up the pace to Link's vexation. Such dour thoughts were starting to depress the young Exorcist, to the point where he wanted nothing more to curl up in his bed and sleep. In sleep he could escape it all, that is, if the nightmares didn't come. Usually they didn't, but they did have an occasion of rearing their ugly, cryptic head whenever he wasn't expecting it.

"Slow down!" Link protested feebly, having trouble trudging through the snow unlike Allen, who plowed through it relentlessly.

"I don't think so." Allen stated plainly, stepping over a log in the midst of the path they travelled upon.

In another half hour spent in relative silence, the pair eventually caught sight of the Black Order in the distance. With vigor renewed and smile playing at his lips, Allen rushed off, snow flying and his coat flapping in the wind. Link sighed; he was disheartened that his charge was gallivanting through the snow as if it was nothing when he himself was having some difficulty with it. Just what was so important that'd he go running off like a child seeing snow for the first time, was beyond the simple Inspector.

Ignoring the fact that he was leaving Link well off behind, Allen ran over to the Order, anxious to make it to his bed and nothing more. However, this simple plan seemed to change drastically as he made it to the entrance and was greeted by the girl who never ran out of smiles to give him.

The smile from before grew with more warmth, and his heart gave a stuttering jump in his chest.

"Welcome home, Allen!" a young Chinese girl roughly around his age said kindly.

Allen nodded, appreciating the fact that she would go out of her way to wait for him to return, even when it was well into the night. "It's good to be back," he remarked, "But you really shouldn't have waited on my account, Lenalee."

Lenalee brushed the notion away with the wave of a hand. "It's nothing, really. I wouldn't have been able to sleep not knowing if you were well or not."

Again he was touched by her display of friendship and concern. It was truly nice, to have someone that cared despite the fact that the memory of a Noah resided within him. Sure, there may have been bumps in their relationship, but now it was steady and resolute.

If things were different, if this world that they lived in was in fact different, Allen may have attempted to pursue an even deeper relationship with his friend and possibly court her. But as it stood, that just wasn't in the cards for him; at least he assumed they weren't. Everything was too complicated, too horrendous for him to try something so normal. He had to be content with this mutual friendship they shared. That was all it could be. He didn't want her to end up getting hurt because of him.

Lenalee's smile dampened a smidge upon noticing the bits of sorrow creep into his pale eyes, reflecting the tormented soul he always strove to bury within himself. He looked tired as well, and though she normally wouldn't impose, she felt it was her duty as his friend to cheer him up.

"You want to go outside and make a couple of snow angels?" she asked with a quizzical head tilt and shoulder shrug.

Allen laughed in a flabbergasted manner, "What? At this hour, in this weather?"

"Why not?" replied Lenalee coyly. Before he had any room to protest, she grabbed him by the hand and yanked him back outside. He chuckled, not bothering to resist.

They passed Link on the way back out, the Inspector stopping and looking upon them with a look of appall. "Have you both gone mad?" he questioned in disbelief.

"Not yet, but you never know," Allen replied easily enough, his chuckles mingling with that of Lenalee's, both amused by the scowl on Link's face. The young man gave an indignant huff, miserably turning around to follow them back out into the cold.

Giggling like children the pair dove into the first pile of snow, rolling around in the white powder. Link sat huddled against a bare tree, face buried in his scarf and his arms crossed. He watched the two of them as his body steadily grew numb. Oh…how this was fun. He bet neither of them took into account that he had to stay out there with them.

Allen flopped down on his back, breathless and laughing. Lenalee collapsed beside him, the two of them lying with their arms and legs spread out. They looked up at the heavens, watching as the snow cascaded down upon them. It took them a moment to regain their breath before they began sliding their arms and legs across the snow, leaving behind angelic imprints.

It reminded Allen of the times he used to do this with Mana, and how the man had practically forced him to lay in the snow to wave his appendages around in what he had felt was an idiotic manner. However, it hadn't been long for Allen to see the thrill of it, to have your body leave an impression in the snow that looked almost like an angel. Mana, though, had the unfortunate habit of making indecipherable blobs rather than discernable angels.

He began to laugh at such a fond memory of his childhood. His laughter was contagious, and for reasons that were not readily understood Lenalee began to laugh as well.

She had never made a snow angel before, never taking the time until now to do so. For a second she felt normal, that her life wasn't filled with never ending battles and unforeseeable futures. She could be a girl, a simple girl, cherishing a fleeting moment with one of her dearest friends.

"Thank you…Lenalee…" Allen panted, chest heaving for air and his cheeks chaffed a rosy red from the biting air.

Lenalee paused and turned her head to look at him slightly astonished. "For what?" she asked.

Allen seized flailing his arms and legs around, smiling up at the sky.

Of course Lenalee wouldn't understand the affect she had on him, how she could lift his spirit back up when it had reached a new low. How she was invariably the light within his sea of darkness, always there to pull him back out before he could be swallowed whole by it.

She was truly a remarkable young woman.

"For just being you…" he told her, thankful that his face was already red from the cold so that she couldn't tell that underneath it all he was blushing.

She smiled that smile that always made his heart flutter and looked back up at the dark expanse of night.

Hesitantly she reached out for his hand. When their fingers brushed he took ahold of her hand and gave it an appreciative squeeze.

In this moment, in the now, he was happy. He wished he could just freeze this moment and live it forever.


End file.
